GP1

Not really. The dynamic of the tournament would just change. There could still be mid majors making the finals, just in a different way.

Duh. Who would have ever guessed that's the way to win basketball games and championships? You read this board as much as the next person. Reading this board, one would think playing defense is the only way to win. If you notice from my post, scoring points comes before defense and mistakes. A lot of points can cover up mistakes and a bad defense night.

I saw the post game interview this morning. Coach Stevens is just being nice. He was by far the better coach yesterday. Saying Donovan out coached comes out a lot better than saying, "I bitch slapped Donovan."

Best football post in a long time. Nice work!

Good post. I think we would be much better of PN7 was beat out of his starting job. Your inaccuracy comment is the best. A QB must be able to throw the ball on target all the time...not most of the time or a part of the time. Good post on downfield throws as well. A pro style offense requires throws down field. Sometimes he was good, other times he wasn't. He isn't good at it enough to give me confidence. After two years, a player tends to be what he is. I saw enough of him last year to make me feel we could do better and need to look elsewhere.

Every year we hear about a guy who is a great scorer playing at Akron. I guess Blake Justice is the next rumor. Ususally, this is more rumor than fact. I'll believe it and applaud it when I see it. To say we have knockdown shooters just isn't the case. Please take a minute, go on GoZips.com, and look at how bad our guards shoot. Steve M. was a four year letterman rumored to be a great outside shooter when he came to Akron. After four seasons, he averged eight points per game and his FG % is terrible. A four year letterman should be averaging 12-15 points per game at point guard. I hate to pick on Steve because there are others just as guilty, but the facts are the facts.

We like to talk a lot on this board about how we become a high level mid major. A team like Butler. I've been going on about how important it is for Akron to develop a go to guy in order to become like Butler. Let's look at last night's game as an example of how offense is critical in a big game. First, let me say this. Florida was the worst coached team that played yesterday, by far. Poor clock management, poor shot selection, rushing offensive trips down the floor and committing bad fouls on defense. It was like watching a MAC team play with the endless whistles. Billy Donovan has no control over his team and the young coach at Butler has complete control over his team. Butler played their game. They come from a league where good shooters are not the norm so they maul the other team inside and wait for the inevitable bad shooting night on the part of the other team. Sound like a league we all know? Last night was the perfect scenario for Butler. Our first round game last week played out the same way. What was the difference between us and Butler? A guy like Shelvin Mack. He scored 27 points last night which is around 9 more than his season average. He was their go to guy. Butler has two guys who average more points per game combined than our top three scorers combined. The floor looks so open when Butler plays because they have guys who can score so you have to defend the entire floor instead of mauling and fouling inside all night. Want Zeke and Nik to score more? Develop and outside shooter. Want to watch more entertaining basketball games without the whistle blowing every 25-30 seconds? Develop an outside shooter. Want to see offensive sets that actually look like an offense (our 1-2 pass, fire up a poor shot half court offense needs to change)? Get a shooter. "But GP1, we are a defensive team and that's how you win championships! Butler is a defensive team and look at them." Wrong, let's look at them in a second. First, the way to win a championship in the MAC is to score points, play good defense and don't make a lot of mistakes. Eventually, the other team will beat themselves. We are good at that. We played just well enough against Can't to allow us to watch them lose the game shooting 47% from the foul line. That isn't a smack at the team, it's reality and it shows KD knows how to win MAC games. It's the winning against high level mid majors and major conference teams where we have a problem. Let's go back to Butler last night and see whether or not defense won the game for them. Butler and Florida averaged 1.5 points per minute during regulation. I'm not interested in buying tickets to games like that. Florida turned on the offense in OT and averaged 2.2 points per minute so Butler was in fact putting on a worse defensive performance at crunch time. What did Butler do when their defense let them down? Did they fall apart? Hell no, they averaged 2.8 points per minute in OT. This is what the Zips need to be able to do. I don't think it is possible for Akron to play better defense. I giggle at those who think we need to play better perimeter defense. I understand their frustration, but why should they? Most MAC schools don't have guys who can throw the ball into the ocean if they were standing next to it. I believe KD and the rest of the coaches in the MAC know this so they play the maul inside game and turn everything into a foul shooting festival. I agree 100% with our defensive strategy. We should play exactly the type of defense we do and find an outside shooter who is actally able to make shots and isn't a guy who is rumored to be an outside shooter. Where oh where is our Shelvin Mack or Matt Howard......... or both?

Good post. I'm not sure that ND was scared at any point during the game. A scare is winning by 3 or 4, not 13. ND had a bad weekend and it was proven when FSU beat them to move on to the Sweet 16. In any event, let's focus on shooting. Akron badly needs to develop a guy who can make shots in big games....a go to guy. It's one thing to get shots, it's another thing to make them. Every offensive trip is an opportunity to make a shot. Every trip to the foul line is an opportunity to make a shot. Execution is the key. The Zips could have easily beat ND had they executed. At the end of the day, the results matter. I'm also cautious to look at one season and infer from that season what a team will do the next season. If the logic is a good season translates into another good season, you couldn't prove it with my Steelers. Over 50% of the times they have made the Super Bowl, they have not made the playoffs the next season with almost the same exact players and 6 of 7 times winning the Super Bowl the year before. Most teams who lose the Super Bowl have a losing season the next season. Akron will have a lot of new guys on the floor and we never know how they will perform when the bullets start to fly. Every season is different. More than anything, this season was interesting. Interesting is a good thing because I'm interested to see how they will do next season. I'm looking for more. I want to see more wins, more wins against major programs, more wins against high level mid majors and a MAC East Championship at the least. A guy who can fill up the stat sheet will be a good start.

OK then, what constitutes a "legitimate job"? Is a public appearance at a local car dealership a job? Lots of personalities do it all the time. Is appearing in an advertisement a job? People get paid for that all the time. It doesn't take much time to go do a photo shot for an ad. Is putting on a football clinic at a local high school a job? People sign up and pay a fee to attend. A service is provide for the fee. Is that a job? A job doesn't always have to be a person showing up at a business, punching a clock and doing a task for X number of hours. There are a lot of unconventional ways to make money.

It is challenging, but that is something the player needs to decide for himself and should be able to make that decision on his own. A player should be required to complete all school related work in order to remain on the team. How he does that is his business. If he thinks he can juggle sports, school and a job, he should be free to do so. If he fails at keeping his school work in order, he will have to make a decision as to what is causing the problem and how to fix it. Maybe public appearances in the spring when football isn't as pressing may be the answer. There are many ways to skin a cat.

My wife called him the lyingest liar who ever lied. His worst nightmare came true last night when the basketball team lost. OSU fans have already forgotten they have a basketball team and are now focusing on football. It's only going to get worse. SOMEONE needs to step in and get the ball rolling on Tressel's firing. It can be members of the Board of Directors if the president of the University isn't going to step in. There is a bigger picture here as well and it has nothing to do with football and everything to do with the integrity of the flagship university of Ohio. This is starting to leave a stink beyond football, all the way up to the president of the University. It looks terrible and everyone in Ohio supports every state university through tax money. The taxpayers deserve better. OSU needs to fire Tressel and then throw themselves at the mercy of the NCAA. If they don't do these things internally, then someone from the outside has to step in. The governor of Ohio has a lot to do and this isn't something he should be involved, but if they can't get it together at tOSU, he is going to have to step in. It would be a shame if it got to that point, but it seems as if there is not going to be another way out.

I wouldn't base the quality of the MAC on how one team does in the NCAA Tournament. I don't think much of the MAC in general, but football was better last year than in recent years and I think one might be able to say the same about basketball.

Major schools were recruiting black players, they just made certain not to recruit too many bacause in the 1960s that would have been taboo even at northern schools. I think the last all white SEC basketball team was coached by the racist coach Adolph Rupp at Kentucky. Pat Riley was one of those players and they were run out of the gym in a national championship game by a team with an all black starting five. Even to this day, there are a certain number of white people who still get upset about the number of black people playing basketball. They also get fixed on the increased number of coaches who are black. It isn't a hard one to figure out....players become coaches for the most part. If most of the players are black, eventually, most of the coaches will be black as well. It's a natural evolution.

Louis Benton was a good place too. I remember the BOB well. For those of you who don't know, the BOB stands for Big Old Building. It was across the street from the Courtyard I used to stay. A lot of people think all of Michigan is like Detroit. Western Michigan is actually a very rich part of the country. Grand Rapids is a growing city full of young people living near this arena and entertainment district. It is a great place.

I'm not 100% certain this is 100% true. If you get something for your gift, it may not be a tax deduction. I gift must be given free of any benefit received in return for it to be a tax deduction.

Any college athlete receiving a scholarship is getting paid. The question isn't about paying the players to play. It is about them being able to earn money outside of a scholarship from places other than the university they attend. They should be able to have a job or earn money of some kind. It's a free country. First of all, it's not a free country. It's a country of laws and regulations. A totally free country without laws and regulations would be anarchy. So you'd need enforcement officials to check on every player with an alleged job to ensure that they actually show up for work. It would be way easy for wealthy boosters to pay kids big "salaries" and not require them to show up for work. That's not a job. That's called evading laws and regulations in order to cheat the system. Any system regulating compensation for amateur athletes must be fair and enforceable. The current system is obviously far from perfect. But it would do no good to replace it with a system subject to equal or greater flaws. My system would allow for the NCAA to have fewer enforcement officials. The NCAA needs fewer of everything, not more of everything. It is none of the NCAA's business, under my plan, what a player does to earn money if the player wants a job. It's about freedom to work. If someone is stupid enough to give a player a $1.0 million to attend University X, then so be it. I don't think it would get that bad, but if it did, it is the fault of the guy giving the money. There are CEOs of companies across America who are making much more per year than that and they know nothing about the business they are running. The NCAA is not a government institution. They can't put you in jail if you break the rules. There are no "laws", only non-legal regulations placed upon players from a time long passed. Tear down some of the regulations and the NCAA can focus on other things. If you believe the NCAA is there to make things fair, you have a misconception of what the NCAA actually, in reality, does. The NCAA is there to make money for the large schools. If you don't believe that, they you don't watch the BCS games. I know there is this whole mission statement about education, etc., that is all secondary to making money. If it can be about the money for schools and the NCAA, the players should be able to share in the money making process of the NCAA by being allowed to market themselves. They are the ones making the money anyhow.

It's not even an Ohio thing. I shook his hand after a game once and my life did not change. There are pathetic, grown men in Ohio who, if given the chance to be close to Tressel, would try to run up and hug him.

When I lived in the midwest, job traveling 100 nights per year. Grand Rapids was one of my favorite places to go. It is a great town. Seeing this post reminded me of one of my favorite places to eat. Bistro Bella Vita. It is right by the arena. If you are ever in Grand Rapids, this is one of the great restaurants in the midwest nobody has heard of. Great place! Thanks for the trip down memory lane Blue & Gold!!!!

Any college athlete receiving a scholarship is getting paid. The question isn't about paying the players to play. It is about them being able to earn money outside of a scholarship from places other than the university they attend. They should be able to have a job or earn money of some kind. It's a free country.

I don't think I want to watch players play who have such little talent the value is measured in zero. People watch minor league baseball,go watch the future pros in the minors. Minor league baseball players get paid to play. Some rather well.

Going to Zips baseball games always brings back good college memories for me. There was nothing better than sitting outside on one of the first nice Saturday afternoons in the spring and watching a game or two.

Isn't Wake still looking for a coach? I would think Shaka would be better fitted for that job than the pressure cooker of Knoxville. And he could be neighbors with the Great GP-1. Hmmmmmm Wake fired their coach after last season. They had trouble getting a decent person to apply for what they had. Coach Smart would have been the smart choice if he was available.

I say the odds are 50/50 that by the time he is finished, the program will be worse off than when he took over. How many games? Four minimum. One win? Ready......aim......F-I-R-E.

I work in the construction industry..... The E. Europeans are much better at it than us though. I really give them credit.

We all know about the Eastern European strippers working these days. I don't blame him. There are plenty of organized crime families to get a job with in E. Europe these days. Maybe he could run a small gambling ring and then move his way up to a mid level manager in whatever family he joins. If he does, I say best of luck. Would it really hurt to say one more year though? I think he should stay. There are always openings in organized crime.